No Way Out But Through
by LemurLou
Summary: GIZZIE. I'm bad at summaries, but George and Izzie have to deal with both the return of Hannah, getting themselves out, somehow, of this CallieGeorgeIzzie mess, and trying to find the boundary and overlap between friendship and love. Also MerDer, AvaAlex.
1. Going In Circles

Chapter One

"She's furious, George," Izzie said, panic rising in her voice. "She's furious at _me_. And Callie… Callie is not the woman you want to be angry at you. Oh, and to hear her tell it?" She sat on the couch beside a stunned and exhausted-looking George and stole his yogurt, which sat mostly uneaten on his lap. "It's fine that you cheated. I'm a whore, but you're fine in her book."

"Izzie, I am _not_. She… she thinks she owes me forgiveness, and I guess... she's trying."

"Well, you don't deserve it," she said, around a mouthful of pink food.

"Her forgiveness?"

"I'm_ sorry_," Izzie said, setting down the carton. Her eyes were fixed on the hardwood floor of Meredith's living room, alternately meeting George's and avoiding them. "But why am _I_ the whore around here?" George shook his head, aware that there was no right response to that.

There was a long pause.

"Do you love Callie, too?" Izzie asked. George exhaled, and out of the corner of her eye Izzie saw him deflate a little.

"She's my wife."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Izzie, don't make me do this." He sought her gaze, but she kept her profile towards him until she whipped her head around.

"George." She looked at him purposefully now, dead on.

"You make promises, you know?" George explained. "They make you stand up and make promises, and you can't break those, just… like that."

"You slept with me, George. There must have been something you thought, something that ran through your head when you took my shirt off… something….?"

"I was _drunk_!" He nearly yelled. He wasn't sure why he was so angry, but it rubbed Izzie's frayed nerves the wrong way.

"Were you drunk in the elevator, George? When you came to my door and told me you loved me? Were you drunk _then_?"

Silence. Then, somehow, he was sitting very close to her, and their faces nearly touched.

"Are you going to let me kiss you this time?" Izzie asked, her annoyance dissipating with anticipation. George's smell, some combination of Seattle Grace's rubbing-alcohol-scented air and a softer something, like soap, permeated her body and made her shiver.

"I want to," he said, turning his head away. "I want to." He stood up and walked out, just a little too fast.

"George," Izzie called after him. "George!"

Meredith came into the doorway instead, and looked at Izzie quizzically.

"What's going on with you two?" She asked, picking up the yogurt and eating it.

"You are the third person to eat that yogurt today," Izzie said, avoiding her question.

"Nice try." Meredith laughed. "Why are you and George spending half your time storming out of rooms?" The corners of her eyes came up; clearly, she thought this was some kind of indecipherable private joke. Izzie shifted to defense, though nothing Meredith said called for it.

"Oh, me and George? Nothing. You know. Normal, friend stuff. Just friends. Doing what friends do. Like… talking about things! His, um, crazy wife. Surgeries." Sickening comprehension dawned on Meredith's face, as so many strange pieces fell into place within her mind.

"You and George are… you did… seriously?" Izzie stared back at her, wide-eyed and numb.

"I'm _not_ going to run and tell Christina," Meredith promised. Izzie's face relaxed a little. "But… what?" Meredith continued. "Why?"

"I love him," Izzie said, as if that would make up for the immorality of the whole thing and assuage Meredith's shock.

"Great," Meredith said, nodding, "everyone's freaking in love." She sighed and sank into the dark leather chair opposite Izzie, with the seemingly bottomless carton.

"When did you know you were in love with Derek?" Izzie asked, sighing.

"I don't know, Iz." Meredith studied the last spoonful of yogurt. "How does anyone tell?" With that cryptic thought, Meredith tossed the empty container and the spoon on the coffee table, then left.

Izzie stayed behind on the couch. For five minutes, she watched the threshold, waiting for the next person to come through.

The next person, predictably, was George.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. He threw himself down beside her. Wordlessly, he leaned in, tipped her back, and kissed her. It was so intimate, so careful, so full of impulses they couldn't act on, that anyone who saw it would feel uncomfortably like they had caught George and Izzie in bed together.

Then they went in for another kiss, rougher this time. His hand was tangled in her hair, slightly damp from a recent shower and curling up because she had given up on the straightening iron for that evening. Izzie slid her hands were around the small of his back as she sucked in the smell and taste and feel of him when it was readily available, since it so rarely was.

Suddenly, they were sprung apart by the sound of a door being wrenched open, slammed, and post-ceded by heavy footsteps in the foyer.

"Where… the hell… is my _husband_?"


	2. Alone In My Own Head

First of all, thank you so much for responding. It really makes this whole thing much more fun and much easier for me. In the future, if you're reading but don't have time to respond, just type in a "I'm here" or a random letter or two, just to let me know there are people out there. Of course, I love comments best.

Do you guys want mostly Gizzie, other ships, some medical stuff? I'm up for suggestions. It's Gizzie-centric, but there's got to be other stuff in there, so let me know what you like. I'm new to the Grey's writing.

Hope you like this chapter! It's a little talky and slow-moving right now, but it'll pick up. I'm getting my footing.

- Leems

Chapter Two

Callie stormed in, a second after George and Izzie jumped apart. She threw her leather jacket down on the couch, shook rain from her hair, and looked at the two of them with pure venom.

"You have no business being in the same room as my husband," Callie said to Izzie, who was pressing her lips together, as if it would wipe the evidence of their contact with George away.

Callie's face was pale and soft from the absence of her usual mascara, and her hair hung in unraveling ringlets around her face. She looked sad and beaten, and when Izzie saw her, the usual pang of fear and anger in Callie's presence was suddenly tinged with guilt.

Izzie gave a last glance at George and ran upstairs.

"What are you doing?" Callie asked, when she had heard the thundering disappear into an upstairs bedroom.

"I need some time… away. I'm moving back into Meredith's house."

"Are you _insane_?" Callie's voice rose. "_Away?_ Izzie is living in this house! That is not _away_ by any stretch of the imagination!" George said nothing.

"Oh," Callie said, her eyebrows relaxing into their usual places above her large, tired eyes. "You mean away from me. You pick her, then? You pick your horrible, selfish, bitchy little friend over me." Callie ground her teeth after that. She sounded like the whiny, clingy women she had always hated; she was trying to hang on to someone who didn't want to be hung on to.

The idea of letting go, though, was even more impossible.

"I said I forgive you," Callie told him. "After _you_ cheated on _me_. And then you leave and move in with her?" But the battle was lost. She was done, scrabbling to keep something that had long slipped away.

"Listen to me, George," Callie said. "I will wait. I love you, and this is a terrible, terrible part of our marriage, but we can make this work. If you will help me, we—the two of us—can put this whole... _thing_ behind us." George nodded, not so much in agreement but as something to do other than stare blankly at his sodden and panicking wife.

Callie picked up her coat and threw it back over her shoulders, and finally asked the question that had been running through her head since she came in the door.

"Have you slept with her since that first time?" George shook his head no, still not speaking, and Callie exhaled.

"Okay." She zippered her coat up to her chin. "And George?" He raised his eyebrows as a motion for her to go on.

"I am definitely _not_ pregnant." When his face betrayed no emotion, Callie tossed her hair out of her face and walked out.

George went upstairs and into Meredith's room, where she was folding a stack of laundry, some of which was hers and some of which was almost certainly Izzie's. George sat down beside her, and Meredith looked up, surprised to see him.

"George?"

"I need someone besides Izzie to be my best friend right now."

"What?"

"I talk to her, you know? When I have a problem, _she's_ the one I go to. But when she's half the problem, what am I supposed to do?"

"You need to let her be your best friend. You need to yell at her to put aside her own whatever and deal."

"Seriously?" Meredith nodded and picked up some tan cashmere contraption, slightly creased from air-drying.

"I'm going," George stood.

"That's the spirit!" Meredith yelled, but he was already gone. He had walked to the end of the hallway to Izzie's room so many times—to laugh, to help her cry, to seek advice, and once, to have sex with her.

"Izzie." She, too, was stretched across the double in the middle of her room, and broke into a smile when she saw him.

"Is Callie gone?"

"She's not going to leave me, Izzie. I'm going to have to leave her."

"You're moving out, though? Isn't that basically you leaving her?"

"She wants to make it work, Izzie." She pulled on his hand and he lay down beside her. Izzie turned her head to face him.

"But do _you_?" His mouth formed several words that never made it into the air.

"We don't have to do this, George," Izzie said. "You can go back to being Callie's husband and my best friend. Or…" she inhaled and looked at his face, a little blurry from proximity, "you have a choice to make, and you sure as hell know what my vote is."

"I need your help," he admitted.

"I can't give that to you, George."


	3. A Piece of Me

Thank you all, again, so much for reading and commenting. I am not easily hurt, and especially appreciate constructive criticism, if you want to give it. I'd also like to know, again, what other pairings you'd like to see and how much of an emphasis you'd like to see on the medicine. Please let me know.

In the next chapter—chapter four—you're going to see a comeback of the Gizzie friendship. As much as they're embroiled in this triangle, Izzie still needs her best friend with this new twist. And for better or worse, her best friend is George.

- Leems

Chapter Three

Izzie's pager went off on the bedside table, vibrating itself down onto the floor. She picked it up.

"Crap. George, I've got to go." He didn't move. "I have to _change_," she explained.

"Fine." He was studying the ceiling and his voice was hazy from preoccupation. Izzie sighed and stripped off her pajamas, replacing them with jeans, a t-shirt decorated with a watery image of a Japanese koi, and a canvas jacket. When she was done, she kneeled back on the bed.

"Married men don't watch ex-lingerie models take their clothes off," Izzie whispered to him. Then she smiled at George as she left, trying to disguise the nervousness growing in the pit of her stomach, and didn't turn around to see his reaction.

_You gave him an ultimatum_, she told herself, walking down the hallway. _He'll make a choice… but you've got to know it won't necessarily be on your side_. Izzie pulled her rain boots over her feet and left, grabbing someone's umbrella from the stack by the door.

_Why is it always raining here?_ She grumbled, turning the ignition and maneuvering along on the slippery road. _This is the first time I've had to buy new boots because they've worn out, not because they've gotten moldy or I've lost them or something._

Izzie pulled into the Seattle Grace parking lot and sprinted for the door, where Bailey stood waiting. The lobby was nearly empty, the OR board unusually sparse, and the cavernous lobby held only Izzie, Bailey, and a couple doctors asleep in chairs with cups of coffee slipping out of their loosening grips.

"Listen to me," Bailey began, more quietly than her normal authoritative boom, "I did not call you in here for surgery. I understand that you are not on call right now, and that you do not want to be dragged out in this endless rain to come back to the hospital. However," she continued, "Hannah is here, and I think you need to see her. Her parents wanted you to see her, before she…" Izzie's intestines clenched as she tried to steel herself for what she knew Bailey was going to say next. "Izzie…" Bailey said, gripping Izzie's long hand, "I am so sorry. Right now, you need to take every ounce of courage, and self-control you possibly have, and hold it together for your daughter. She needs you. Her parents—her _adoptive_ parents—need you. You can do this."

Izzie nodded, nauseous. She stared at the ceiling—glass, impractical, badly insulated and dark with nighttime sky. A few floors up, Izzie's daughter—the product of an unexpectedly unpleasant night with the dark-haired boy next door who was just a little too pushy—lay in bed, expecting someone she had never met to comfort her through the impossible.

Several miles away, George was lying on her bed, his mind spinning with a question to which he knew there was no answer. And Callie, probably in her hotel room, struggled with losing a kind, intelligent, loving man she'd thought she could trust.

She wiped their faces from her mind. This was about Hannah.

"Okay," Izzie said, and Bailey led her to the elevators. On the fifth floor, they entered a corridor of harshly lit pastel walls and came to Hannah's door.

"Behind this," Bailey warned, "is a very, very sick child. A very, very sick child who you may well feel a strong connection to. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

Bailey pushed open the door, and Izzie managed to take a few steps inside before she froze. Hannah was very, very thin, and her narrow limbs were covered in tracing-paper skin and dark, inky bruises. She had an IV taped to either arm and monitors stuck to her sunken chest. She had hair like an infant's, spare, wispy and colorless. After a second, Hannah managed a smile at Izzie, and revealed that an incisor and two molars had fallen out from the chemotherapy. Izzie's stomach lurched again, but with Hannah's parent's encouraging eyes on her, she crossed the room and put her arms around the little girl, who felt fragile and weightless against Izzie's body.

"I'm Isobel," Izzie said to Hannah.

"You're my birth mother," Hannah said, "I know. Thank you for coming to see me. If I were you, I'm not sure I'd be able to."

"Thank _you_, Hannah," Izzie said, perching on the edge of the hospital bed. "Thank you for letting me come." Hannah nodded, so sage and calm, an adult by virtue not of how long she had lived, but by how much time she had left.


	4. Stop the World For a Second

Questions for you all:

Is this unbearably slow-moving? I like the dialogue, but I'm concerned that there's not enough action to hold you guys. What do you think? I'm going to tell the story mostly through character interactions—is that viable?

Do people not comment as much a few chapters in, or have people stopped reading?

What other ships do you want to see?

Let me know what you think of this chapter. Enjoy!

- Leems

Chapter Four

"She looks awful, George," Izzie breathed into her cell phone, trying to talk around the tears streaming down her face and her too-deep breaths. "She's dying. My. Daughter. Dying."

"Izzie, breathe. I'm coming, okay? Where are you?"

"In the hallway, where we usually sit. With the huge window and the abandoned stretcher."

"I'm on my way. Do you want me to stay on the phone?"

"Please…"

"I'm right here. Are you okay?"

"No, George, I'm not okay. Hannah…" She brought up a sob that made her lungs climb up her throat. "has about three months left. And I gave her the marrow! You were there! I gave up a whole piece of me but even that didn't save her."

"Izzie. Listen to me. This is not your fault. There is nothing you could have done to stop this."

"Was there something in me that made her sicker?"

"She was so sick before she came. I'm almost to you. Five more minutes. Hang in there."

"She's so sick… what did I _do_?"

"This is not your fault," he repeated. "There. I'm at Seattle Grace. I'll be right there." Izzie wiped some of the saltwater from her cheeks, but it kept coming. She heard his heavy, running footsteps through the phone.

"I'm turning the corner… here I am." She saw his silhouette at the end of the hall and shoved her cell phone into her pocket. His hair stood up from where he had fallen asleep on it, and he was wearing one of his college Frisbee-team shirts over pants from two days ago, but he was there. He came over to where she sat and put his arm around her, wordlessly, letting her cry into his chest.

"Think about something else," George told her, pushing pieces of blonde hair out of Izzie's eyes. The crying didn't stop.

"Look at me, Izzie." At last, she looked, up, sniffing. "I'm right here. It's all right. You did your best."

"My best wasn't enough. Don't you get it? I gave everything and that still… wasn't… _enough_."

"I was thinking," George began. He was forging ahead with what he had intended to tell Izzie when she got home, and instead said it now to distract her, to give her something to latch on to. "I…."

"Shh…" Izzie said. "Not now. I need my best friend right now, okay? Not married, cheating, stuck-in-triangle George, but George who sits here and says the same thing over and over to ground me. Okay? Because I do not need a declaration of love. I need you to sit here and make sure I'm okay, and then take me home." George rested his chin on the top of her head.

"Just tell me when you want to go back," he mumbled.

"Promise you won't leave?"

"I am your friend, Izzie. This sitting in the hallway in the middle of the night when I should be asleep preparing to repeat the whole intern nightmare—I am doing this because I love you, not because I'm in love with you. Do you understand?"

"Friends," she said, as children coming to the end of a slapping match declare truce.

"Always," he promised, and Izzie nodded and leaned into him. After a few minutes of silence, George looked at her again.

"Are you ready to go home?"

"All right."

George took her by the elbow and led her out into the parking lot. They left the car Izzie had come in behind and took the second one, entering the sleeping house as quietly as they could. Up in Izzie's room, she collapsed on her bed.

"Can you stay here?"

Wordlessly, George knelt and settled himself beside her. The room was dark—they hadn't ever turned the lights back on—but lighting and dawn eventually lit it up enough to see shadows. And anyone who went into that room would see George, propped up against the headboard, watching Izzie sleep. The expression on his face was a mixture: tenderness, worry, and something that looked strangely like regret.


	5. Cats, Bags, and Stalkery

This chapter's a little longer, in response to the request for lengthier chapters. They look a LOT longer in Word… this chapter's nearly three pages, previous ones have been one and a half to two, but they spread out online to the point where they don't seem like much at all.

The Hannah thing isn't going to be as heavy as it looks like it might be—yeah, she's losing a kid, and I'm dealing with that, but it's also partially used as a stepping stone for the Gizzie friendship/romance thing.

I asked this in the "reviews" section, but in case you guys didn't see that… how do you make a story available for anonymous commentary? Thanks!

Please read and review. Again, many brownie points for those who can give constructive criticism, but general reviews are great too! Let me know what you think of this chapter. It's a little lighter that previous ones: this whole issue's a little melodramatic, and, well, Christina always helps with that.

- Leems

Chapter Five

"What are you doing in Izzie's room?" Meredith asked in a stage whisper, opening the door fifteen minutes before they had to leave for work. George snorted and woke with a start, trying to focus his eyes on Meredith.

"She's had a rough night."

"George, you do not sleep in Izzie's bedroom. You sleep in your bedroom…most of the time. So, go."

"You know... you know about us."

"Yup. And the way Seattle Grace works, in a week it'll be me and the rest of the zip code." Meredith put her hands on her hips. "Get ready for work and stop stalking Izzie."

"I am not _stalking her_. How would you like it if you were having a crappy time of it and I… I came into your room and kicked Christina out?"

"Christina being in my room does not entitle Callie to kick my ass! And Callie is _not _the woman you want intent on kicking your ass. So. For your own safety. Go. To. Your. Room."

"Izzie's thinks Callie's scary too. Is my wife that intimidating?" Meredith nodded, eyes widened, then jacked her thumb out into the hallway.

"_No_," George insisted. "I'm not going. I'm her… what do you guys call it?"

"Her person. But George, you do not get to sleep with your person. If you do, you lose the rights to camp out in their bedroom without raised eyebrows." Christina came up behind Meredith, dressed and ready.

"I came here to steal your coffee—I'm too cheap to buy it from the café and the bag Burke bought is empty. So… what's this about sleeping with people?" Meredith, though she blanched at the mention of Burke, didn't comment on it when she rotated to face Christina.

"I was just telling George that you don't get to sleep with your person."

"Ew. Meredith, I…" Christina smiled a little bit, devilishly. "I didn't know you felt that way about me. How do you tell Derek that? No wonder you guys have been having such problems."

"I meant George and Izzie."

"Seriously? George has a thing for Izzie?" Christina sing-songed the last sentence a few times under her breath, walking back down the hallway with a self-satisfied spring in her step before doubling back again.

"George, give it up. There's no way. Izzie's, like, a zillion feet tall and her boobs are an ad for the silicone industry. And you're, well, George. Plus, we all saw how great the whole Meredith thing worked out. There's a moral to this story. Don't crush on whiny blondes." Having delivered these lines, Christina left again.

"Thanks!" George and Meredith called after her, in unison, but she was already downstairs. Meredith gave George another reproachful look, and seemed as if she was about to say something, but Izzie shifted and opened her eyes.

"I'm feeling watched." Meredith and George stared.

"Now I'm _seriously _feeling watched. Meredith, could you go eat a cupcake or something and give me a minute?" With a glare at George, Meredith followed orders.

"Thanks," Izzie said to George, once it was just the two of them. "For last night."

"All part of the job description."

"You know what? I woke up this morning and the first word that came to mind was Hannah. And then I was like, don't think about that, you're going to start crying again, but then… well, you were right there and I was kind of… relieved, I guess. That I hadn't lost you too."

"I watched you sleep, last night," George confessed, starting in on vocalizing his own hours-long train of though. "I sat by the window and I… I just looked at you while you breathed. Izzie, I've got to hurt one of you, either you or Callie. Do you realize that it's been a whole day since I've talked to my own wife? Or that my wedding ring is sitting in the drawer in my bedroom? I finally told her about us, and all she says is that she forgives me. She's trying to stay married, and I'm doing everything to destroy that. Can I put of the hurting a little longer? Can I just live here and have you accept that I'm in meltdown, and… can we forget about the sex?"

"Do you really want to?" George didn't answer. Izzie crawled out of bed and perched next to him, tilting her head back to touch her lips to George's. She kept them there for a moment, motionless, again trying to burn the flesh memory of their mouths together into her mind. He closed his eyes, wanting to respond, but frozen with confusion, indecision, and some foreign ache in his chest. Hanging on to that sensation, Izzie sat up straight again to speak.

"That didn't seem like you wanted to forget about it," Izzie said, noting the confusion clear in George's eyes.

"I… you've got to get ready for work," he insisted, looking painfully flustered.

"You," Izzie said, standing up and speaking in an unnaturally cheery tone, "make an excellent point. I do have to get ready for work. So now, I'm going to take off my clothes and shower. _Without _you in the room."

George saluted and went down into the kitchen, where Meredith and Christina were sitting, each with a mug and the coffee pot between them.

"Why are you avoiding Callie when you're the one who cheated on _her_? Isn't it supposed to be her pretending _you _don't exist?" Christina asked, looking at George over the rim of her cup.

"What? You know?"

"Dude, the whole SexyBack at three in the morning was a dead giveaway. And besides, the two of you have had 'I slept with my best friend and am now dealing with the oh-so-tumultuous situation my life has become post-drunken sex' written all over your faces for weeks now."

"So why the 'George, give it up, she's not interested'?" Meredith asked.

"Screwing with him." Christina looked up from her mug to see George, who looked stricken and queasy, and set down her coffee to roll her eyes at him. "Oh, come on. You honestly think everyone _doesn't _know? Neither of you is exactly royalty in Subtlety Land." Izzie came downstairs, showered and dressed in record time.

"What's going on?" she asked, pulling a cup from the cabinet and pouring coffee into it.

"They all know," George told her. "About the thing. Our thing."

"I'm not surprised," Izzie responded, digging through the refrigerator for milk. "We're not exactly secret-keeper central around here. I mean, it would be really great if we could handle this like competent adults who've made a mistake, but when the hell does life really work like that?"

"Why," George asked, sliding into a chair and fixing his eyes on the ceiling, "am I the last one to know about _everything_?"


	6. Paging the Real George

This chapter's kind of sad—but this is pretty much how I feel about the mild character assassination of George and Izzie. I'm going to try to bring them back, and this chapter is, in part, setting up for that.

Anyway. Enjoy and PLEASE comment. You guys have been really good about that, and I appreciate it.

- Leems

Chapter Six

"You two, Pit," Izzie ordered, selecting two of her interns. "You, go do morning rounds on the Post-Op floor, _ask _them to give you charts. Do not exercise your own judgment. It's not used to the strain. And the rest of you… yes, you two, come with me. We're in the ER today. Do not speak to Dr Torres unless she speaks to you. Everyone clear?" They seemed a little stunned, but the interns respectively scattered or arranged themselves behind Izzie.

"Let's go." She led them down the hallway, until a slightly harangued-looking Callie crossed their path.

"Dr. Stevens? I need to talk to you about a patient." Izzie stopped in her tracks. "Sorry? Me? Patient. Sure." Reluctantly, she gave her interns instructions to continue and stopped, facing Callie and leaning against the railing of the glass overpass.

"You probably realized that I didn't want to talk to you about patients," Callie began, shifting the charts she held beneath her left arm. "I was wrong, insulting you like that. It took three of us, to get here. It took you falling in love with George and getting in bed with him, but it also took him loving you. And it took me driving him out. So it was my fault, too. Mine and George's. So… you're not the only bitch around here." Callie didn't smile, but much of the anger that had settled behind her face seemed to disintegrate.

"I'm not an idiot," Callie continued. "I've figured out that he's not in love with me anymore. You've taken my place. So enjoy it, okay? I'm going to be hurt and betrayed and pissed, but George is not evil. He was an ass to me, but that does not make him an ass. And he… pretty clearly loves you."

"Callie, I…"

"And never, ever give me any details of your sex life, okay? Because I'm not above vomiting on your shoes." Finally, Callie broke into a small grin, and Izzie returned it.

"I'm still mad," Callie warned. "But you are not the only one at fault, and you seem like you need someone to cut you a break. So let me be the one to do it."

"Thank you," Izzie said, trying to read Callie's face for some explanation. Instead, Callie waved and walked off. Izzie paged George with instructions to meet her in the on-call room and then went there herself.

He must have been somewhere close, because by the time Izzie arrived he was sitting on the bed with his hands in his lap, patiently waiting for her to explain.

"Your wife cornered me," Izzie began, "and told me, basically, that I wasn't the only reason you've been lead to immorality."

"Oh." George seemed to be waiting for the punch line. "And…"

"She also told me she'd barf on me if I ever mentioned our having sex."

"Then don't." Izzie lay down beside him on the bunk.

"I won't," she whispered. "But first, I have to have something _not_ to tell her about." She pulled him down towards her by the shoulder and started pulling on the drawstring of his scrub pants.

"Not here," George said, reclaiming his posture and pants fastener. "It shouldn't be here. We shouldn't have to go back to work afterwards. Tonight, okay?" Izzie cleared her throat and sat up.

"Promise?"

"Yes, Izzie, I promise." George got up to leave.

"You know what I just thought of?" Izzie asked as he was almost to the door.

"Mm?"

"I wasn't nearly as drunk as you were, that first time. I remembered it all. But for you… well, it'll be almost like your first time with me, won't it?" She gave him a slow half-smile.

"The going back to work distracted thing? You're not helping." George waved good-bye and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Izzie sighed and picked at the beginnings of a hole around her sleeve. George was not a screw-in-the-on-call-room guy. She guessed that the ceremony and anticipation was part of what made the whole thing so appealing, but it was frustrating. Maybe part of her _did_ want to stumble back into work with a lopsided hairdo and flushed cheeks. Maybe Callie's forgiveness made her more nervous than Callie's fury.

She was like a dog, she realized, peeing all over its tree. She had to mark George as her own by making it obvious she was doing him at work. If she didn't make that clear, someone might take him from her.

Izzie began to realize why Callie had acted the way she had after George confessed. First, she had done the only thing she could think of to get him to stay: tell him it was all right, so he wouldn't storm out and leave her. And then she tried anything to direct her anger elsewhere, away from the guilty party: at patients, at Izzie, at herself. Especially herself. She thought she was such a good wife, so supportive, so understanding. Not half bad-looking, either.

But George had the ability to destroy her. With one evening, George had ensured that Callie would always second-guess herself: whenever she flirted with a guy, when she went to a bar, if she ever fell in love and married again, she would be eternally suspicious of her partner and force him to live with her intensified insecurity. Maybe her fear would even drive nice guys, guys she deserved, away from her.

_We were wrong. What we did was wrong. Now I'm a dirty mistress and George is a cheater and that's for life._

Then, fear building in the back of her throat, another thought crossed her mind before she could stop it.

_Am I going to be the one you hurt next, George? What woman am I going to be forced to eye, wondering what she has that makes you love her so much more than me?_

_What do I have that Callie doesn't?_

The soft spot in the shirt fabric became a full-fledged rip.

_You were so sweet when I first met you. What happened to you? You were my adorable, generous, empathetic best friend with that sad little crush on your roommate. Now you're triangulating between me and Callie and a failing career. Nothing's working. It's destroyed you._

_Where did that first George go? I got you to leave Callie, but the 'you' I wanted got left behind a long time ago. I can't have you, Callie can't have you: you're gone._

_Can we get George back? Because that's the guy I'm in love with. This George… well, I don't even _recognize _him._


	7. Running Backwards

I'm going to incorporate some more couplings, and I'm bringing them into this chapter… it's kind of a medley, with a whole bunch of current snapshots along with some flashbacks. Lots fewer reviews this time… you guys still out there? Just a simple "still reading" note is really helpful, if you have a second.

This chapter's pretty long. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Seven

"Ready?"

"Ready." Deep heavy breaths and a long kiss. His hands in her shirt, which was a little too thin and lacy to be innocent loungewear. More lace underneath her shirt, shaved legs underneath her clingy velour pants, the ones that hung right on her round hips. Their bodies twisted against the door to shut it.

_"I'm George."_

_"Izzie. Isobel Stevens, actually, but I go by Izzie because it's shorter and doesn't include the last name, which is really kind of pretentious anyway. I mean, _Stevens_? What is this, the military?"_

_"Um, no, I guess not."_

_"Oh, and have you tried the eggplant crap they're passing out? It's good, really. Try some." She passed him something soaked in olive oil and wrapped in a cocktail napkin. George slid it into his mouth._

_"That _is _good," George said around a mouthful. Izzie grinned at him._

_"Yeah? It is, isn't it?"_

_"You know, some of the people here have seen a beating human heart," he enthused. "Isn't that amazing?"_

_"The amazing part," Izzie corrected, "is seeing a heart that's _not _beating and making it start again."_

"Bed," Izzie gasped, her film of a shirt and pants in a pile on the floor next to George's jeans and rock-concert T-shirt.

"That's the idea, isn't it?" He asked, as they fell backwards. Hands everywhere—bourbon-fuzzed memories came back clear, immediate, hot. _That's what that felt like. That's why I couldn't stop. _Angles and curves fit into their grasps. Straps and elastics were thrown away as skin was thrust against skin. Warmth radiated from their bodies, everything touching and molding around one another.

"Thank you… thank you… yes…" Soft, because no one should hear: this was theirs and only theirs.

_"We're friends, George, we're all friends. Meredith happens to be a friend getting over having her heart broken by McDreamy. Don't be mad at her. She's trying."_

_"It's not me?"_

_"George, for God's sake, you didn't rape her. She didn't have to do that. She slept with you because she wanted to and she… miscalculated."_

_"Did I hurt her, Izzie? Did I do this to her? Because right now, Meredith's a mess and I… this isn't me, is it?"_

_"No. No, she was hurt way before you came along."_

_"You sure?"_

_"I'm sure."_

Downstairs, Meredith sat in the hallway in front of the door, with no idea of what she was doing or what she expected, only so exhausted she couldn't bring herself to stand up and change out of her work clothes. There were footsteps against wet concrete, and a fist banging at the glass door. Meredith raised her head. There were two figures standing on the front stoop. One was Derek, one was a woman who looked familiar but Meredith couldn't quite place, clutching a baby carried.

"Come in," she said, and Derek pulled the door open. The woman behind him was dressed in jeans and a shiny green raincoat, with her dark red-brown hair pulled back in a rain-soaked bun, and an infant bundled in pink blankets lay in the carrier.

"This is where Alex lives, right?" She asked.

"Um, yeah, right upstairs," Meredith said, not thinking about the fact that she was letting a stranger into her house unquestioned. _She's tiny. Derek could take her in a fight._

Derek sat on the floor next to Meredith.

"Did I scare you the other night?"

"With the baby-marriage-rest-of-our-lives thing?"

"Yes."

"Do you want the truth?" Meredith looked at him, anxious. Derek nodded.

"Yes."

"Okay." Meredith took a deep breath. "I'm terrified, Derek. I can't do that now, but I don't want to lose you. I love you."

"I'll wait," Derek told her, settling his arm around her waist. "I won't find someone else. I'll wait for you. But someday, I want to look at a baby and decide whether it has your eyes or mine. Okay?"

"We couldn't keep a dog alive. How do you think we're going to manage a baby?"

"No idea," he admitted. Meredith laughed and rested her head on his shoulder, more comfortable than she could remember having been in months.

_"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Ava looked up at Alex, her fingers entangled in her baby's._

_"Yeah, she is," he said, trying to keep false gruffness in his voice. "What are you going to name her?"_

_"I love the name Alexandra," Ava said, "but one Alex is really enough." The baby's tiny mouth opened in a sob, revealing shiny pink gums. Ava picked her up, bouncing the baby against her chest and cooing until the tears disappeared._

_"You're good at that," Alex noted._

_"It's a maternal thing." Ava rocked the baby. "Want to hold her?" Without a response, Ava transferred her daughter to Alex's broad, careful arms._

_"You're right," he told Ava. "She's beautiful. Just beautiful."_

"I came back," Rebecca announced, throwing her florescent, dripping jacket on the floor and setting the sleeping baby down, carefully. "After you never came back for me. I'm here, Alex, because I'm not ready to give up on you. I'm not going to let you leave me. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to lie down on your bed. I am going to talk to you until I fall asleep or she wakes up, whichever comes first. And I'm settling in. I left my husband. I brought my daughter. Let me stay, Alex, please." She was half-hysterical, whispering so she wouldn't startle the baby but clearly resisting the urge to yell.

"Shh… sit down." She collapsed beside him.

"What's her name?" Alex asked, gesturing towards the carrier.

"Rebecca," she told him.

"Junior?"

"Nope." The adult Rebecca settled into the crook of his arm. "I'm Ava now."


End file.
